Joomlashack School Shack Pack

[Barrie North]

Struggling to set up a School Joomla website?

Get a complete installable Joomla configuration specifically designed for Schools and educational institutions.

Introducing the Joomlashack Shack Pack for Schools! Our team of Joomla experts has been hard at work creating a complete turnkey Joomla website that you can install in seconds and save hours of work.

We spent many hours creating a complete joomla web site for a school, some of the steps included:

• Research and review of the needs of a schools, college and universities
• Creating a suitable content organization (sections and categories), site map and navigation
• Sought out the best and most reliable extensions
• Installed and configured them all to work together, with Joomla and with the template
• Wrote an extensive 30+ page Joomla tutorial specific to schools of what we did, and more importantly why we did it.This is a complete guide for how to implement a successful Joomla powered education website

We bundled the result together with some great extras for you to get started with your site:

• A complete installable Joomla package including components and content. Exactly as you see in the our Joomla School website demo
• A high quality free school joomla template designed by Joomlashack
• A coupon for 50% off one of our commercial Joomla templates good for one week after Shack Pack purchase
• Our own popular 80 page Joomla users manual
• A free forum for Joomla users in schools to come together and talk about their own needs and successes

The School Shack Pack includes:

• Joomla
• Email Newsletter
• Calendar
• Document Manager
• Extended menu for a pure CSS drop down navigation
• Basic ideas for content to get you started

This whole site will install on your server in a few easy clicks.

We think that this service is exactly what you need to get started with Joomla. Think of it as the ultimate beginners kit. Thousands of hours of Joomla expertise and experience squeezed into a single downloadable file.

The Joomlashack School Shack Pack.

We would love to hear your feedback about our exciting new service. If you need a host, you can get two free months hosting from www.rochen.com for your new school web site. Details on puchase. Also available from Dreamhost is Free hosting for 501©(3)’s in the US.

[Monyamickle]

Thanks for the newsletter and info!  This might be just what I'm looking for. 

Is it me or does the link to the demo school site not yet work?

I have a few other questions also but one thing at a time.

EDIT  It's seems ok now.

[Barrie North]

We are building the package as I type, it should be available in the cart later today....

The demo and cart product are now available!

[AZTommyb]

Looks like a solid package! Right in line with the rest of your nicely designed work. Looks like this might be a good starting place for us.

Cheers,
tom

[warmbell]

Just wondering if this package could be (easily) adapted for a charity site?

Gerald  aka warmbell

[Barrie North]

I think you could adapt it easily enough. I would think the only functionality you would need to add would be an ability to accept payments.

[dave]

Just had a meeting with a headteacher about their new site, got back to the office & there was your email announcing this Shack Pack. Coinicidence?

So I had to buy.

I notice that the download contains a full version of Joomla. Problem is I have already loaded Joomla with a template that I have been modyfing to use. If I do a complete install won't I overwrite that template?

As a newbie, can you tell me how I can keep the template I want to use?

Thanks

[Dean Marshall]

Hi Dave,

Good question.

If all you *need* to preserve is the template you have been working on then the procedure is relatively straightforward.
Simply download the folder /templates/<name-of-template> and store somewhere safe on your PC.

Blitz your current installation and use our ShackPack.
Then re-upload your <name-of-template> folder to the new /templates/ folder.

Templates are the one Joomla add-on that can be 'installed' manually.
Finally you will need to set the new template as the default for your site.
'Site' -> 'templates management' -> 'site templates' -> tick your template and click 'default' button

Dean

[jlafree]

Question:  my hosting company (PowWeb) handles the installation of Joomla and the underlying MySQL database.  I have seen references here to the ShackPack doing a full install of Joomla.  Is that possible in my scenario, or does PowWeb have to be involved somehow for the database or other install/setup pieces? 

Put another way, can I install the ShackPack on top of my current Joomla install, and would that wipe out my content and settings?  (That would be OK, since I don't have anything configured on the school's site yet).

Thanks!


-- Mark 8-)

[Dean Marshall]

The shack pack is a complete Joomla site - so would blitz an existing site.
I assume that your host is using a control panel based installer - CPanel or Fantastico,etc.
If you can use phpMyAdmin to delete all of the tables within the database, and then use your FTP program to clear out the Joomla files you should be able to install the shack pack version.

If your host allows you multiple databases then it should be possible to install a second copy of Joomla without deleting the first.

I can't comment on specific hosts though - there are too many hosts and too many packages to recall the specifics.

Good luck.

Dean

[jlafree]

Thanks Dean.

My host does allow multiple db's (I think 5) and I am not concerned about keeping the current one.  My concern is whether they restrict me from installing Joomla and/or MySQL databases myself (using a ShackPack, for example), or is their control panel merely a courtesy utility for newbies like me?

So, does your ShackPack install app work with pretty much any hosting company, or does it require server-side apps and/or access that are commonly not avaialble or restricted?

Sorry, I have a fair amount of computing experience, but very little on the hosting or unix side of things, or even much with web sites.

Thanks for any further clarification!

[Dean Marshall]

You need an ftp program to transfer the files and a server that has the pre-requisites (PHP, MySQL).
Most hosts use the control panel installations as a courtesy - and usually you are allowed to install your own scripts.
Please check - either directly with your host, or by reviewing the hosting package details from the time of purchase.
Essentially if they off the ability to install and run your own scripts you are good to go. Sometimes a cheaper package restricts you to those scripts specifically offered though - but you would presumably been aware of this at time of purchase.

Even if you are currently restricted it would be trivial to workaround - and most hosts would allow you to upgrade your package if you wished.

Dean

[falconmedia]

Having paid for the shack pack product..... Having some problems with the installation.
When using the joomla installer, at Step2, having entered the correct Mysql db entries, the app states that there have been some errors inserting data into the database. The error log is huge and mentions syntax problems...

Help !

[JSSupport]

@falconmedia
You may want to open a new topic as well as provide your system variables.

[falconmedia]

Hi JS Admin,

I wont post a new topic as I have found the exact same problem in another topic running. Can someone take a peek at this please
http://www.joomlashack.com/community/index.php/Itemid,183/topic,4539.0

Thanks

Paul

[paily]

Thanks for this great template.How to change the template width to fluid?
When I publish Couloir AJAX Slideshow the template work fine in firefox but in it is just collapsing in internet explorer6.
Kindly help.
Thaks

[bcwaller]

I think I'm over my head.  I got a free site from LunarPages (free to K-12 schools in the US), but the site is IIS and Mambo.  I have been trying for days to get the free template installed and since the tutorial is for Joomla stuff just does not translate.  I was able to FTP the free school template and I think it is in the right place, but the modules don't show up and I can't seem to  load up modules.

Since I can FTP, I could wipe directories and start over, if that is possible.  Is the Mambo control panel my problem?

[Dean Marshall]

Joomla and Mambo are still incredibly similar - the split was 18 or so months ago but both are still built on the same code base (last time I looked anyway). Sounds like you need to add ?tp=1 to your site's url to see the positions available - and then set your modules to display in the positions that are there.

Beyond that it is difficult to be more specific - not without a link anyway.

Dean

[bcwaller]

Dean, thanks for the reply.  The issue is not positioning, I cannot install modules using the Mambo interface.  Is there a directory structure that is universal that would allow me to know where to load files to?

If you want to see what I have, it is at http://altavistapta.org

[Dean Marshall]

Templates are the only part of Joomla that can be simply uploaded via ftp and work.
Even these shouldn't be installed that way unless you really need to - Joomla (like mambo) has a great installer for doing the donkey work for you. 

If you do try to install a template manually:
When you unpack a template you get a folder named /name-of-template/ (obviously with the actual name of the template).
This whole folder should be placed in <joomla root>/templates/ so you get <joomla root>/templates/name-of-template/

To do things properly with the installers
Log into the /administrator/ section of your site (as a super admin) and go to
'installers' -> <pick the appropriate installer>.
Click the 'browse' button and point the dialog box to the zip file on your PC.
Click the 'install' button and Bob's your uncle.

If other add-ons don't install then it could be down to file permissions on the server - what happens when you try - do you get errors. It could also be 'safe mode' which is a severe restriction that will cripple your site. Another setting to watch for is called OpenBaseDirectory which limits the paths from which files can be loaded dynamically. This is another severe limitation.

When you installed your site did you ignore any red warnings at the bottom of the pre-installation check - page 1 of the installer?

Dean

[bcwaller]

I'm guessing that the difference is Mambo.  I clicked a box on the CP from LunarPages to install mambo and did not see any red flags.  I did attempt to do the install of the template as admin and I got errors.  Same with the modules.

I will see if I can wipe the entire Mambo installation and either start over or see if there is a Joomla installation I can do.  That way maybe the directions will all flow from the PDF.

[bcwaller]

Update:  I installed Joomla and then was able to follow the instructions to install the template:

http://www.altavistapta.org/joomla/index.php

Now, how do I edit the footer to be for the site I'm doing?  I can turn it on and off, but I don't see a way to change the content.  Do I just use an editor to edit a file somewhere?

[Barrie North]

The footer is a module. You edit it from the module manager in the back end.

[bcwaller]

I see where I would edit the module, but there is no content to edit, just

Details

Module Type:
Title:
Show title:
Published:
Position:
Module Order:
Access Level:li]ID:
Description:

Menu Assignment

Menus:
Menu Selection:

and

Parameters
Module Parameters

Caching

It looks like I could edit the XML file with a file editor...

[Barrie North]

Keep scrolling down and you should see the Custom Output (an editor).

I see:

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